


James Rhodes- Not Your Fault

by Skellyagogo



Category: Colonel James Rhodes - Fandom, James Rhodes - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, War Machine - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Female reader insert, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 20:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21167639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skellyagogo/pseuds/Skellyagogo





	James Rhodes- Not Your Fault

  


The team was back together, amends had been made, the past mostly forgiven but not yet forgotten. It was just an informal get-together, a ‘hey let’s see if we can still work as a team and let bygones be bygones’ kind of thing. It started out a little awkward, a little stiff and tense, but after the alcohol started to flow the atmosphere changed. Everyone started laughing and reminiscing, soon there was dancing. Jane and Thor, Bruce and Nat, Tony and Pepper, Wanda and Viz, I shared a few dances with Steve, Clint, Sam, Pietro, and Bucky, but Rhodey sat alone on the arm of a sofa taking it all in.

He hadn’t said much that night, barely uttered a word, but his eyes were vigilant of the whole scene around him. It wasn’t hard to see why the exoskeleton braces around his legs. One of his hands would absentmindedly run his fingers over the brace, his eyes would twitch slightly with an emotion I couldn’t place. A tiny smile would slide across his mouth as he’d take a drink of his beer. He was different than he used to be, harder and slightly more cynical, but I couldn’t blame him. Rhodey probably hated me for my part in it all. His military career was over in an instant after that fight and nothing anyone could have done would have stopped his plummet.

_I didn’t want to take sides in the Accords, but I couldn’t understand how no one could see that signing them was no different than what the Nazis did or those that supported them to the Jewish people. Registering myself with a Government so they could control me whenever they so choose. Letting some Bigwig on the top floor of a fancy Government-owned penthouse order me to take out a person running against them just because they didn’t like the competition and or labeled them a Domestic Terrorist threat._

_How could no one see the evils that would follow signing those papers? How could they not see the potential abuse of that power already brewing around the world? Government entities with their fingers hot on the trigger just waiting for the right 'hero’ to do their dirty work. I refused to sign, but unlike Clint, I wouldn’t let them make me retire either. I hid in the shadows seeing the chaos as it unfolded just like I predicted, unable to put a stop to any of it._

_When Steve called me, without hesitation I jumped and ran to help when he needed to get Bucky out. The fight at the airport was worse than it ever should have been and all because of stubborn men and their inability to see things for anything other than their biased view. All that led to me watching Rhodey from across the room in fear tonight amongst the throng of everyone else in drunken celebration._

_I outed myself in a flash seeing Rhodey hurtling through the sky that day at the airport. I showed them all what I’d kept hidden from the world. I was no longer just an assassin, I was a betrayer of trust and a freak of nature. The protection barriers I’d thrust out from my hands in Rhodey’s direction had barely reached him in time to lessen the blow of the impact. I felt responsible for my incompetence in preventing it altogether, maybe I could have shielded them all, hindering their movements and forcing a discussion. It’s never as simple as having an open discussion, is it? One side always feels right and the other is wrong, they can never see the grey area in-between._

_I sprinted across the field to reach Rhodey’s side in an attempt to heal him. Tony had just blasted Sam away and across the sea of grass in the opposite direction. His repulsors held up in anger aimed straight at my chest, even he wasn’t sure why he hesitated to fire on me. The fear and loathing a wash in his eyes was something I can never forget to this day._

_“You can kill me afterward Tony,” I sighed and focused solely on Rhodey. “I need to try and heal him.” My voice was shaken and hoarse, I wanted to be strong and brave, but I could feel the edge of my death under Tony’s glare. He stared at me as if he didn’t know who I was anymore. It was like the last few years had been erased in an instant. The secret of a few hidden abilities was more than enough to break his trust and earn his rage._

_I could feel the firey heat radiating out of my palms flowing over the crumbled man beneath me, but there was too much damage. The War Machine suit was throwing off to much interference and I couldn’t get him out of it either. I tried, I really did, I almost killed myself in the process. That much power coursing through me too fast, overly concentrated and waning emotionally around me. I was like a Nuclear reactor ready to blow._

_My eyes barely registering Rhodey opening his eyes as my body went into survival mode. A barrier surrounded my weakened body, shielding everyone from the price that was mine to pay for failing. Tony and Rhodey watched in a mixture of glee and horror as the blast of energy exploded like an Atomic bomb inside encasing me in a haze. My body collapsed to the ground in a heap of broken bones and limbs, my eyes fluttered closed. The wet gurgling sounds echoing in my chest caused a fearful groan from Rhodey. Tony was ready to finish me off in his anger, exact his revenge, but Rhodey lifted a shaky hand and coughed._

_“Not Y/n,” Rhodey hacked wincing in agony, his eyes darting between Tony and me._

_“But she fought against us Rhodes,” Tony argued, a desperate look of misery filled his eyes at the thought of losing his best friend._

_“She never wanted to,” was all he could get out before he passed out._

_Tony stood vigil over the both of us until help arrived. Rhodey was taken into surgery immediately and I… I was ushered into some underground bunker in Wakanda. I was operated and studied in depth while I’d slept for three months as my body healed itself. SHIELD and the world feared me, feared what I was capable of, but to Shuri, I was an innocent casualty. I was just a broken woman in search of inner peace in a world at constant war. Soon I’d become an adoptive member of their family just like Bucky._

I was afraid to talk to him, afraid he’d despise me for not being able to prevent any of the damage. He was a long way from ever being okay, he’d need those braces maybe the rest of his life. Yet here I was selfishly wallowing in self-hatred because I couldn’t fix him. I zoned out staring in his direction wondering what I could have done differently. Would he even have been hurt if I wasn’t there fighting? Why couldn’t I heal him without my powers going haywire like that?

I could feel the burning sensation of eyes on me, I shook my head out of my own thoughts and saw Rhodey watching me with a raised brow. He had never been one that was hard for me to read. Usually, he wore his emotions well but now I couldn’t see anything and that was dangerous. I stood up so abruptly out of shame for staring, I’d knocked over the drinks on the table in front of me making everyone stop and stare at me.

“I-I’m sorry, excuse me,” I muttered, my face reddening with every second I stood there under their gaze. I turned tail-walking briskly out the door and into the night.

I kept on walking to the edge of the concrete patio. There was a chill in the night air that made me shiver. My mind flooded with doubt on why I’d even accepted Tony’s invite to come back, be that same teammate I was before. Nat tried to reassure me on the way over that it was all in my head, that everyone had gotten over the shock of it. She kept repeating that there was no hate from anyone directed my way, but it didn’t stop that feeling from sinking in the deepening pits of self-doubt.

The music was blaring inside, the vibrations from the bass rumbled up under my feet, but I could only stare at the massive expanse of space above me. Hundreds of thousands of stars twinkling up in the dark sky shining down on the undeserving likes of myself. Before the airport I’d never experienced anxiety, was never wracked with guilt, but now I was a mess and could barely keep it together.

A breeze picked up and blew a cold kiss against my skin making my body shudder. I wrapped my arms around themselves, rubbing them for warmth, but it didn’t matter. A soft woolen blanket draped over my shoulders followed by strong hands massaging up my arms. He didn’t say anything, he just stood behind me gazing up at the stars as well. It was too much to bear, he should hate me, but there he was in silent comfort. The tears welled up in my eyes spilling over in droves, the soft hiccuped sob caught in my throat made him step in front of me with a look of nothing more than pure concern.

“I don’t deserve this,” I tried to pull off the blanket and flee but James Rhodes wasn’t having any of that.

“Stop Y/n,” the pleading distress suddenly evident in his face as he pulled the blanket back over my shoulders holding it firmly closed around me in front.

“I can’t… I couldn’t…” my eyes drifted down landed on the exoskeletal braces only caused the tears to flood my cheeks. “Scream, yell, hit me, but don’t… Rhodey don’t tell me to stop hating myself please.”

“It’s not your fault,” his strong authoritative voice replaced with one of pure calmness. Those eyes of his shining in the dim light searching mine trying to show sympathy. His soft palms resting on my cheeks as his thumbs wiped away the tears. “Y/n, listen to me. It’s not your fault.”

The weight of everything I’d felt since I’d woken up in Wakanda came crashing over me. The silent sobs turned into heart-wrenching gasps for air as I fell into his chest clinging onto his jacket as if it was my last link to reality. One of his arms wrapped around my shoulder blades holding me tightly in his grasp, the other rested on the back of my head. His fingers stroking through my hair, soft murmurs trying to find their way in my ears to soothe the ache I was suffering.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered in the darkness under the watchful eyes of all those shining stars.

“I couldn’t… I tried… it didn’t work.” The whimper was almost too quiet, but he heard me clear as day. Rhodey leaned his chin atop my head, not an action he’d ever done in all our years of friendship.

“I would have been dead without you.” He could feel the tension in my body starting to lessen, but he held strong to me. He could see Tony watching the two of us out of the window with a faint smile on his face before he walked back towards the others.

“Don’t you hate me?” The question hung in the air around us as I hid my face in the crook of his neck.

“Not even a little bit,” he sighed and inhaled deeply the fragrance he’d missed for ages. His fingertips slowly kneading the tension away. My cries quieted, the tears were letting up, silence heavy in our mouths.

The only sounds heard were the rustling of the wind in the trees and the slowed yet erratic beating of our hearts against each other. The music and noise inside the Compound had all but disappeared in the of a gentle howl of the wind, the crinkling of dried leaves underfoot. His breath trying to keep a tempo for me to follow to slow my cries to a stop. Just another in a long line of tranquil tactics I never knew the hard-assed Colonel Rhodes was capable of. My hands fell from their hold on his jacket and wound their way to his lower back. I hesitated the move at all, but the way his breath hitched in his throat seemed like encouragement.

We stood in a hold uncommon and utterly foreign for the two of us, but neither was willing to walk away. It’d been nearly a year since that incident in Berlin. We’d only heard about what happened to each other since then through word of mouth of the others. It was odd in the here and now, at this moment. Our hardened outer appearances had melted into a softness that hadn’t been experienced by either of us in far too long.

Rhodey rocked on his feet swaying the two of us side to side, his only intention to make me understand he held no ill will. The music was so muted at first it didn’t register. The arm around my shoulders slipped down to my waist, gingerly and reluctant to rest in a spot unfamiliar to him. He’d barely given me a hug in all our years of knowing each other but here he was, afraid to let go. The other hand unfurled from my hair and ran up and down my back as we moved. I knew the song, Shuri had listened to it enough in her lab during my stay, Fallen by Gert Taberner.

The volume faintly increasing each turn he paced us around the small patio. Rhodey only intended to comfort the nerves he’d witnessed in me since I’d walked in the door that night. Yet we found ourselves holding on to something we didn’t even realize we needed as we danced under the stars. The lyrics wafting through the midnight hour. Maybe it was the breeze, maybe it was the melody of the words, but we found ourselves inching closer than before craving the warmth each held.

“It’s not your fault,” he broke the silence between us with a low breath in my ear.

“Rhodey,” the sigh hung heavy in the chill, but the heat of it made him shiver. “It’ll be a long time until I can look myself in the mirror again.”

He pulled away glancing down into my eyes with something akin to hope, a humble smile only Rhodey could pull off on full display of his lips. I thought my heart had been broken. Shattered into pieces at my mistake out on that grassy field, but here it was beating like a racehorse. A rhythmic tempo that literally seemed to skip the longer he stared. Rhodey stopped moving, stopped swaying all together to glide his thumb and index finger on my chin. Those deep and mysterious eyes of his held me in a daze.

It was like an out of body experience, seeing him lean in pressing his lips to mine. The warmth of his lips on mine, the hint of alcohol stung my chapped lips. There was a serenity to it the way our lips moved, a sweetness in the innocence of it. He took a step back trying to gauge my reaction to his sudden forwardness in the kiss. He was only met with a tiny smile adhered to my mouth and closed eyes that fluttered lazily. An amused husky laugh rumbled in his chest watching the way my torso was still moving towards him in search of more.

My eyes darted open betraying the secret hidden deep inside. He grinned and cupped my face in the shadowy darkness of the patio. The only light from the stars above and the faint glow from the party inside.

“Then I’ll be here right by your side until you can see you the way I do.”

He tugged me into his chest, sealed tight in an embrace. We stood that way until the cold made me tremble. He led us back inside holding my hand, fingers locked in tenderness. He only let go long enough to grab us another drink once he had me seated inside. We jumped right back into the conversation with the group as if nothing had happened outside except his hand rested on my knee. His index finger swirled in circles as a way to say 'it’s okay’. Natasha pulled my attention to the side, but I still heard the exchange between him and Tony.

“Finally said something huh?” All the sass and snark were gone from Tony’s face, showing but admiration for his best friend who sat beside him.

“In my own way yeah,” the subtle laugh that left his lips signifying a new beginning. Tony observed the modest way Rhodey comforted me and knew Rhodey made a good choice long ago and wished him the best.


End file.
